Schedule of Events | Symposia

Age Differences in Resisting Interference in an Eyewitness Memory Study

Poster Session C - Sunday, March 30, 2025, 5:00 – 7:00 pm EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Himanshu Chaudhary^1,2 (himanshu.chaudhary@tufts.edu), Elizabeth Race¹, Ayanna Thomas²; ¹Tufts University Integrative Cognitive Neuroscience Lab, ²Tufts University MetaCognition and Applied Memory Lab

Eyewitness memory is critical in the criminal justice system, yet can be unreliable. Two factors that affect the reliability of eyewitness memory are age and exposure to misleading post-event information (PEI). Prior studies have shown that warning young adults against misleading PEI and allowing them to strategically regulate their memory improves accuracy. Effective regulation is reflected in improved memory performance by withholding incorrect information when given the ability to. The present study tested whether older adults could benefit from warnings and the opportunity to strategically regulate memory retrieval in the face of misinformation. To examine this, older and younger adults underwent an eyewitness misinformation study in which they were presented with a video depicting a non-violent crime and were subsequently presented with an auditory summary of the video (PEI) containing misleading details about the original event. Participants were randomly assigned to either receive a warning after the PEI or to not receive a warning. Two tests about the original event served as measures for memory performance: a forced-report test, where participants answered every question, and a free-report test, where participants were given the opportunity to withhold answers they were uncertain about. We found that warnings reduced misinformation susceptibility in younger adults, but not in older adults. However, older adults’ memory accuracy did improve when allowed the opportunity to withhold responses, displaying effective regulation. Inability to use retrieval strategies like warning could suggest that interference impedes memory differently as we age, and older adults may require additional scaffolding to counteract misinformation.

Topic Area: LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic